Liberal Arts Advising

• Who am I? Simon Halliday, PhD.
• Who else? You! My advisee
• My office: Pierce Hall 1.07
• Direction? Pierce Hall is next to College Hall, my office is in the back passage and turn to the right at the end of the passage (see pictures below)
• Email/hangouts: shalliday+advising@smith.edu Why is this my email address? Check here

Pierce Hall

Things to Remember

• Remember, your writing intensive (WI) course does not have to be in the Fall.
• But, not all First Year Seminars (FYS) are available in the Spring.

What will we talk about?

• What ideas fascinate you?
• What drives you?
• What professional goals do you have?
• What’s your background?
• What co-curriculars are you thinking of? Associations, societies, sports, volunteering?
• How do you identify? (I go by he/him)
• Are you a domestic or an international student? (I’m international)
• Are you a first generation college attendee? (I am first gen)
• Are you prepared for the weather? (I wasn’t, but became so)
• What major(s) interest you? (Mine were Economics and English Lit)
• Do you want to study abroad? If so, where? (I didn’t because I couldn’t afford it)
• Did you get an email about supplemental courses in Math or English?
• Did you take any AP or IB courses? Did you get a 4 or 5 for AP?
• Do you have any disabilities or health concerns I should know about?

What are my expectations of you?

• presence
• communication

Communicate with me

• If you are struggling academically or having personal issues with a professor, you need to let me know. Send me an email. IM me on Google hangouts.
• If you are having concerns with mental health, let me know.
• If you had holds on your account, let me know (often health or SFS and I can help you).

Resources at Smith

• The Spinelli Quantitative Learning Center has a page called Math Success At Smith – use this to take ALEKS courses and review your understanding of calculus; ALEKS is not a placement test, it’s a tool for you to review your learning and revision goals
  • ALEKS is free for you to use (you don’t pay anything, but Smith is paying for you to access it)
  • It takes somewhere between 2 and 3 hours to complete it (depending on what you do) and you have 48 hours to complete the test
  • You have 6 months to complete the learning modules
  • There’s a Moodle Page for incoming students and you have access to ALEKS on
  • Where is the Spinelli Center? It has MOVED and is now in Seelye 207 (it used to be in the library, but had to move because of renovations)
• Pre-health
  • Make sure you go to the orientation talk Tuesday Sept 5th, 2-3pm, McConnell 103.
  • Go to the website.
  • Many kinds of health professions, not just MD: nursing, public health, vet.
  • Explore your interests, you may not want to be a doctor, but have other interests in health
  • Don’t forget the post-bac (a one-year intensive after you graduate that covers pre-health requirement), but do get some experience in a lab course during your time at Smith.
    
  • Sometimes you need to get the courses at UMass if Smith doesn’t have them (often true for nursing – it gets Smith credit)
  • Typical first year courses include: CHM111, CHM118, BIO132/133, MTH111, PSY100, ENG118. Make sure that you take intro bio & into chem early! CHM111 is ONLY offered in the fall, so make sure you get in there.
  • If you want to do JYA, you often can’t if you’re pre-health. You can do a semester abroad, but don’t recommend a year.